My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
~ Thich Nhat Hahn

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.￼”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. “No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hahn’s Introduction and Explanation.
I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us.
The first is a twelve-year-old girl, one of the boat
people crossing the Gulf of Siam. She was raped by a
sea pirate, and after that she threw herself into the
sea.
The second person is the sea pirate, who was born
in a remote village in Thailand.
And the third person is me.
I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn’t. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life – economic, educational, and so on – it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate.
So it is not easy to take sides.
Out of suffering, I wrote this poem.
It is called “Please Call Me by My True Names,” because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say,“Yes.”Please Call Me by My True Names

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
~ Thich Nhat Hahn

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence.”
~ Aristotle

“One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life?
From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness
and does not want suffering.
Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this.
From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment.
Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.”
~ Dalai Lama

“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self.
Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self.
Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self.
The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

“What are we here for?
We are here for freedom, for knowledge.
We want to know in order to make us free.
That is our life; one universal cry for freedom.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“Our purpose is process –
metamorphic process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters –
we learn all that matters is LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished.
If you’re alive, it isn’t.
~ Richard Bach

Q. Is earth-life purposeful?A. Yes! We are here to learn and evolve.
Though some Eastern mystics may call this ever changing “reality”
a dream, maya, samsara, or illusion,
it is a marvelous and miraculous mental creation.
So how can anyone ever imagine earth-life to be without purpose?
Our purpose is process – metamorphic process.
Like unique facets of an infinitely faceted jewel,
each earth being has a unique perspective, but a common Source* –
which transcends this world, while everywhere immanent therein.
So, our purpose is harmoniously to realize and experience,
and to actualize from infinite perspectives,
our ONE transcendent Self identity.
As long as we believe ourselves to be seemingly circumscribed
and separated from the rest of our reality,
We incarnate to realize and to actualize
our common Self identity.
We learn until we leave.
But, we don’t leave until we learn –
LOVE!

Footnote.
*Innumerable names – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.

Ron’s Commentary on Purpose of Life.
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered whether our human life has a purpose – individually or collectively?
According to the Dalai Lama “What is the purpose of life?” is the “one great question [which] underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not”. He answers that question by simply stating “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
Since midlife, I have found that reflecting about our life’s purpose if any has sparked a very helpful process of ever expanding happiness. Therefore many quotes, poems and essays posted on SillySutras have speculated on answers to that mysterious question.
Today I have shared the foregoing apt quotations and essay/poem to help us consider the purpose of life question. In my experience reflection on life’s purpose, if any, helps us gradually realize that we are not who or what we were taught or ‘labeled’ to be, by society or by our mistaken reification of projected-perceptions.
We are not merely our mortal bodies – their genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories; we are not the ‘voices in our heads’. We are non-dual immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But ultimately ‘under the hood’ we’re all the same Cosmic Consciousness.
By realizing and actualizing our common spiritual identity, may we transform and transcend this world of suffering.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner

Q. “How Can We End Suffering?A. Be a Buddha, be a Tara;
Say sayonara to samsara.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“All formations are ‘transient’ (anicca); all formations are ‘subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are ‘without a self’ (anatt ). Corporeality is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient. And that which is transient, is subject to suffering. ”
~ Buddha

“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards. Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind. It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . . . Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda

“You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
~ Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

“In Buddhism, ignorance as the root cause of suffering refers to a fundamental misperception of the true nature of the self and all phenomena.”
~ Dalai Lama

“We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.”
~ Dalai Lama

Pain is inevitable. But suffering is optional.
~ Buddhist saying

“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering.
Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is…
The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.”
~ Dan Millman

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering.
Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of “me” or “us.” That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, in the end you always create misery. It’s as simple as that. When you don’t know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self. Protecting and enhancing that false sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering.
When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go,
then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was
for you to drag those burdens around with you.
You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible.
The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
~ Osho

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
~ Helen Keller

“…if the mind is attentive and does not move away from suffering at all, then you will see that out of total attention comes not only energy…but also that suffering comes to an end.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“…when you suffer, psychologically, remain with it completely without a single movement of thought… Out of that suffering comes compassion.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“In the school of life we suffer
to learn compassion for those who suffer.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“When you are suffering, when you are unhappy, stay totally with what is now.
Unhappiness or problems cannot survive in the Now.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

”As you would not like to change something very beautiful: the light of the setting sun, the shape of a tree in the field, so do not put obstacles in the way of suffering. Allow it to ripen, for with its flowering understanding comes. When you become aware of the wound of sorrow, without the reaction of acceptance, resignation or negation, without any artificial invitation, then suffering itself lights the flame of creative understanding.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“It is the truth that sets you free and not your effort to be free.
Suffering is but intense clarity of thoughts and feelings which makes you see things as they are.”
“I maintain that truth is a pathless land,
and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever,
by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

Q. The Buddha taught that human life entails unavoidable suffering (duhkha), but that we can be freed from suffering. Why do we suffer, and how can we be freed from suffering?A. We suffer from ignorance (avidyâ) of our of our true self-identity and ‘reality’, and from our consequent unskillful thoughts, words and deeds, which are subject to law of karma. Suffering ends when ignorance ends; ignorance ends gradually with experiential Self knowledge that we are Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, rather than merely mortal and limited persons.
Various spiritual traditions propose different paths or methods for attaining such Self knowledge. They can only point to this spiritual goal, but not bestow it.
Each person is unique with a unique perspective and unique karmic history causing psychological suffering. An often recommended method to end such suffering is perseverant introspection for mindfully identifying, realizing and transcending our unskillful tendencies. Such attention and realization can ultimately free us from such suffering.Ron’s Commentary on “No pain, no gain.”:

“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Kahlil Gibran

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
~ Carl Jung

“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through hell”
~ Sri Aurobindo -“Savitri,” Book II, Canto VIII.

“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny.
They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We can not reach heaven
without passing through hell.
In duality domain
ev’ry pleasure’s
wrapped in pain.
Within each joy
is an oy/oy/oy.
So, when you’re feeling forlorn,
remember this:
Misery is the mother of Bliss.

“All suffering is caused by human desire,
particularly the desire that impermanent things be permanent.
Human suffering can be ended by ending human desire.”
~ Buddha

“To have no wants is divine….
The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.”
~ Socrates

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery”
~ Sri Yukteswar (Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 43)

Wishes and wants are mental projections to the future
of remembered pleasures from the past.
Wishes are then, but Life is NOW.
Well-wishers sometimes sincerely say,“May all your fondest dreams and wishes come true.”
But, we’ll never have all we want ’til we want just all we have.
And – unfulfilled wishes can be Divine blessings.
So – topping our wish list, is our wish to be wish-less.
For ’til we stop wishing, we’ll ever be wanting.